Compare and Contrast Essay for The Kite Runner and Slumdog Millionaire

When Assef and his minions confront Hassan and Amir with the intention of hurting both of them, Hassan steps into the role of hero. He aims his notoriously accurate slingshot at Assef’s eye and threatens to remove it should Assef come any closer. This bold banishment of his only weapon seemingly saves his brother and himself from an injurious rendezvous with a hateful individual. Likewise, Salim, knowing what evil men have planned for his brother, Jamal, Salim informs Jamal, throws chemical in the eye of one man, and leads his brother to safety. These stories incorporate many common characteristics and archetypes but may not be intended illustrate exactly the same point. Despite the similar methods of illustrating their ideas on brotherhood, Hossieni, author of The Kite Runner, and Doyle, director of Slumdog Millionaire, possess differing opinions of its ramifications.
Both The Kite Runner and Slumdog Millionaire contain settings and plots comparable in many ways. First, Jamal and Salim, Amir and Hassan are Muslim boys living in countries with societies traditionally viewed as ancient and custom oriented but are currently lacking in many forms of stagnancy. Also, the archetypal “Cane and Able” plot begins when the brothers are separated because one betrays the other. The two stories, themselves, center round one brother’s search for the other and, ultimately, the disseverance of some form of redemption.
Besides redemption, these stories – like two houses built with stones cut from the same query – are filled with countless themes and symbols whose shear numbers confirm the “brotherly” connection between the two. The symbolic motif of power through a gun or weapon appears in both works. Salim first kills a gangster and then, drunk with power, forces his brother to run from him and Latika. Assef also realizes that guns give a person a certain power: the ability to force others to comply with your demands. Furthermore, the theme of migration mirrors the search for brother and redemption in both stories. Amir must return to his war-torn home of Afghanistan in search of that “way to be good again”. Jamal and Salim are set loose upon India after the death of their mother. They spend part of their time on a train steeling and selling for a living.
Concerning the beliefs that Doyle and Hossieni demonstrate in their stories, the two could not possibly find more divergent viewpoints. These differences reach their summit in the brothers they each present. Hossieni displays what many would regard as a more realistic view of the world. Hassan, after standing as the paramount figure of honesty, courage, and loyalty, he takes the fall and is killed for defending his master’s and father’s house. Amir, the more imperfect brother saves the day by overcoming his weaknesses. Contrastingly, Doyle’s brother of faith and hope is the one who triumphs over the dark forces and the more imperfect brother, Salim, ends up dead in a bath tub. Doyle’s more definite distinction between the tainted brother and the savior-brother distinguishes him as having the clearer conflict of good verses evil.
Most importantly, the Hossieni and Doyle outcomes follow very divergent ways of thought. Hossieni’s ending does not have a happy family united in San Francisco nor is the hole left in Amir’s heart, due to the betrayal of his brother and communicated to his wife in the form of sterility, filled. The ending of the novel describes anticlimactic conflicts such as coming home to America and dealing with the child abuse that promises to plague them for years. Doyle’s outcome expresses a much more optimistic outlook on the world. Jamal – the good brother – wins both the money and the girl as his perseverance and good faith are rewarded and his selfish brother faces the punishment which he must accept as the proper price for his tormentfully painful transgressions.
So, upon deeper analysis of the two examples of brotherly protection, Hossieni eventually makes Hassan victim to Assef and forces the cowardly Amir to face his aggressor alone which leaves him thoroughly beaten and scared but still alive. Hossieni does not pretend that in facing his fears, Amir will resolve all of life’s unfortunate occurrences but promises him new and trying challenges in the future. Doyle, however, allows Jamal to escape unscathed the danger of wicked men who want to scoop out his eyeballs. This difference foreshadows the eventual discrepancies in outcomes and illustrates their disparities on interpreting the world.